Neat Stuff:

While I was in Alaska last week with GoPro1 our group had an opportunity to ride on dogsleds. In addition to just being fun, it was a good opportunity to try out using a GoPro camera.

Got GoPro?

There were about 10 dog/sled/guide teams for our group. Among the bloggers/journalists we paired up and rode along with a musher. I partnered up with Joanne (of Joanne Loves Science fame) and we rode along with our guide John who was very much a rugged Alaskan. He’s lived in Alaska for 27 years and been mushing for over 20. After a quick orientation, Joanne and I sat in his sled for the first part of our adventure. After sitting for a bit, John invited us (one at a time) to join him on the runners so that we could experience the vantage point of standing behind the sled. It provided a good opportunity to create some footage looking over the sled.

We swapped positions, with me back in the sled and Joanne on the runners. This allowed me a good opportunity to create video looking forward towards the dogs.

Shortly after the halfway point of our adventure, we had a bit of a mishap coming around a corner. Here’s what it looked like from the camera strapped to my chest:

It’s all good… nobody on my sled was injured. It was an interesting experience and it was fun to have this as my introduction to recording with GoPro. I look foward to trying out other things with my camera.

Joanne and I with “our” team.

Disclosure: GoPro sponsored my trip and I was given a GoPro Hero 2 camera. ↩

Greetings from Fairbanks, Alaska! I’m here for a couple days on a trip with GoPro1 to check out some interesting science-related things. GoPro is working with Project Aether; the production team includes scientists which are rigging GoPro cameras to weather balloons. The goal is to capture amazing video & still photography from new vantage points.

Over the next couple of days, I’ll be meeting the team, learning about the cameras, learning about the balloon setup, participating in balloon launches and retrieval (including a trip via dogsled), and hopefully creating some great images. I look forward to sharing what I discover.